Trump Name Being Removed From NY Buildings

Three Manhattan apartment buildings which are owned by a private company will soon no longer bear the gold lettering “Trump Place,” in order to assume a more “neutral” identity.

In October, a petition started by residents of the building gathered about 600 signatures, asked for Trump’s name to be removed from the buildings, as some residents claimed they were “embarrassed to live there” while Trump’s name was on the building.

However, the owners of the buildings claim the petition had nothing to do with their decision. Chicago-based Equity Residential has owned the properties, along with using the Trump brand, since 2005, but say the Trump organization was never paid for the use of the name.

According to Equity spokesman Marty McKenna, the use of the Trump brand was part of their contract, and that period of the contract has ended, so they will be renaming the buildings with simply their street addresses, at 140, 160 and 180 Riverside Boulevard on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

The three buildings are among seven buildings located along the Hudson River which Trump developed with a group of Hong Kong billionaires in the 1990s, reports RT News.

The “Trump Place” name will remain on the other four complexes of the project, which neither Equity Residential nor the Trump organization owns.

Equity Residential said in a statement: “EQR is in the process of rebranding three of its NYC buildings that are currently called Trump Place. Since the campaign and election, the Trump name has been politicized and as a public company EQR remains apolitical.”

Linda Gottlieb, who started the petition to drop the name, is taking credit for the decision, even if Equity is denying the petition had any impact on their decision.

“We’re very pleased, people felt really good that they could do something,” Gottlieb told Bloomberg after news broke that the Trump signage would be scrapped. “It was an empowering way to protest. It wasn’t a random protest, it was a very specific protest.”

“The tenants had no role in this,” Sam Zell, the chairman of Equity Residential, said, according to the New York Times.

“The building is beautiful, the service is impeccable,” Marjorie Jacobs, a resident in the buildings, told Bloomberg in October. “But the name is very embarrassing. I’m embarrassed to tell people where I live. I tell them 180 Riverside Blvd.”